{"id":73372,"date":"2022-08-16T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T05:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=73372"},"modified":"2022-08-15T16:36:29","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T20:36:29","slug":"qotd-the-first-casualty-of-political-campaigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2022\/08\/16\/qotd-the-first-casualty-of-political-campaigns\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The first casualty of political campaigns"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 15px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>Truth is the first casualty of war, no doubt, but so it is also of elections \u2014 or perhaps of political life <em>tout court<\/em>. During elections, though, lying changes from the chronic phase to the acute. Impossible things before breakfast are shamelessly promoted and emotive slogans intoned in the hope and expectation that they will be uncritically accepted. <\/p>\n<p>Walking in Paris just before the French election, I was handed some leaflets and stickers by partisans of Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon, the demagogic left-wing candidate. &#8220;The rich pollute,&#8221; said one of them, &#8220;the people pay.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Am I one of the rich, I wonder? Or one of the people? What about the customers chatting over lunch in the nearby caf\u00e9? Are they rich or are they of the people? M\u00e9lanchon&#8217;s slogan is founded on the old lie, as Wilfred Owen calls <em>Dulce et decorum<\/em>, etc., that society is divided neatly into two distinct categories with interests diametrically opposed.<\/p>\n<p>No lie appeals more to the dissatisfied than this, offering as it does the illusory hope of a confiscatory solution to life&#8217;s little problems. The best that can be said of it is that it permits the dissatisfied an access of hatred and moral outrage, which is always enjoyable and gratifying to experience.<\/p>\n<p>Theodore Dalrymple, <a href=\"https:\/\/thecritic.co.uk\/issues\/may-2022\/election-bumf\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Election bumf&#8221;, <em>The Critic<\/em><\/a>, 2022-04-29.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Truth is the first casualty of war, no doubt, but so it is also of elections \u2014 or perhaps of political life tout court. During elections, though, lying changes from the chronic phase to the acute. Impossible things before breakfast are shamelessly promoted and emotive slogans intoned in the hope and expectation that they will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1117,28,53,41],"tags":[188,1289],"class_list":["post-73372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france","category-media","category-politics","category-quotations","tag-electionwatch","tag-theodoredalrymple"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-j5q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73372"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75654,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73372\/revisions\/75654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}